Systemic prevention of poor adolescent mental health and promotion of social connection and wellbeing

我们的建议是改善青少年心理健康的一种雄心勃勃和激进的方法。年轻人面临着许多日益严峻的挑战，包括迅速变化的技术、环境问题以及经济和就业前景的不确定性。所有这些都会影响他们的心理健康。对于在城市社区中成长的处于不利地位的黑人/非洲/加勒比青年，以及在孤立、偏远和农村社区中成长的青年，尤其如此，他们面临着高度的歧视、暴力和创伤。支持弱势青年心理健康的典型做法虽然出于善意，但往往无法提供青年所需的帮助。通常没有正式的支持——大多数经历精神健康困难的年轻人没有得到服务机构的帮助。即使提供了支持，但一旦问题出现，往往为时已晚。所提供的支持往往脱离了年轻人的生活现实，并可能在不经意间助长他们对社区外帮助的依赖。我们希望将心理健康支持模式从“自上而下”的帮助服务模式转变为社区主导的方法，让年轻人在丰富、支持性的社会关系和支持网络中发展。有强有力的证据支持我们的观点，即社区内已经存在的社会支持、联系和力量可能是防止困扰许多社区的不良心理健康造成的衰弱和严重影响的最佳来源。我们的方法汇集了领先的科学家，设计师和社区冠军，探索当地对年轻人心理健康的影响，在两个领域：黑人/非洲/加勒比年轻人在伦敦城市弱势社区，年轻人生活在农村，德文郡偏远地区。这是两个经常被忽视的群体。我们的合作由伦敦大学学院的Peter Fonagy教授领导，他是世界领先的青少年心理健康专家，以及他在伦敦大学学院和安娜弗洛伊德国家儿童和家庭中心（AFNCCF）的团队。我们的合作伙伴还包括系统和数据科学（PenARC和达灵顿服务设计实验室）、服务设计（Hilary Cottam和Shift）和社区内青年工作（Redthread）方面的专家。我们知道，每个社区都是不同的，有自己的挑战，但也有自己的优势。我们将与年轻人合作，深入了解在人口密集的城市或偏远/农村社区成长的现实，并规划这些社区的机会和优势。我们要解决心理健康不佳的根本原因，而不仅仅是表面上的症状。我们将共同设计一系列创新的干预措施，在社区内部和社区之间建立社会联系，使积极促进心理健康成为每个人的事，使整个社区都有能力支持年轻人茁壮成长。我们还将确保所设计的干预措施和支持系统经受住时间的考验。我们不希望我们的工作是一次性的，有时间限制的努力，在几年内就会失败。这些方法将长期嵌入社区。我们还将设计可在其他地方借鉴、采用和复制的干预措施和方法。我们认为每个社区都应该有工具和方法来利用他们所在地区的优势来促进年轻人的心理健康。因此，我们将与领先的企业家和具有商业头脑的伙伴合作，确保我们的方法能够被广泛采用，同时仍能反映当地的细微差别和特定社区的需求。

Our proposal represents an ambitious and radical approach to improving the mental health of adolescents. Young people face numerous and increasing challenges, including rapidly changing technology, environmental concerns and uncertainty about economic and employment prospects. All of this can affect their mental health. This is particularly true for Black/African/Caribbean young people growing up disadvantaged in urban communities, exposed to high levels of discrimination, violence and trauma, as well as young people growing up in isolated, remote and rural communities. Typical approaches to supporting the mental health of vulnerable young people, whilst well-intentioned, often fall short of providing the help that young people need. Too often formal support is absent - most young people experiencing mental health difficulties do not receive help from services. If support is made available, it often comes too late once problems have taken hold. The support that is provided is often removed from the realities in which young people live, and can inadvertently foster a reliance on help from outside their communities.We want to flip models of mental health support from 'top-down' service models of help that can never realistically meet the needs of young people, to community-led approaches in which young people develop in rich, supportive social ties and networks of support. There is strong evidence to support our view that social support, connection and strengths that already reside within communities may be the best source from which to prevent the debilitating and serious effects of poor mental health that is gripping many communities.Our approach brings together leading scientists, designers and community champions to explore the local influences upon young people's mental health in two areas: Black/African/Caribbean young people in disadvantaged urban London communities, and young people living in rural, remote areas in Devon. These are two often neglected populations.Our partnership is led by Professor Peter Fonagy at University College London - a world leading expert on adolescent mental health, and his teams at both UCL and Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families (AFNCCF). Our partnership also includes experts in systems and data science (PenARC and Dartington Service Design Lab), service design (Hilary Cottam and Shift) and youth work embedded within communities (Redthread). We know that each community is different, with their own challenges but also their own strengths. We will work with young people to deeply understand the realities of growing up in dense urban or remote/rural communities and to chart the opportunities and strengths that reside within these communities. We want to tackle the underlying causes of poor mental health, not just the visible symptoms. Together, we will design a series of innovative interventions that build social ties within and across communities so that the positive promotion of mental health is everyone's business, and that the whole community is well equipped to support young people to thrive. We will also make sure that the interventions and support systems that are designed stand the test of time. We do not want our work to be a one-off, time-limited effort that fizzles away in a few years. Approaches will be embedded within communities over the long-term. We will also design interventions and approaches that can be picked up, adopted and replicated elsewhere. We think every community should have the tools and approaches to capitalise on the strengths that exist in their area to promote young people's mental health. As such, we'll be working with leading entrepreneurs and business-minded partners to ensure that our approaches can be widely adopted, yet still reflect the local nuance and needs of specific communities.